Old French tale about soldiers who trick miserly villages into making them a feast. This version won a Caldecott Medal when Brown retold and illustrated it in 1947.

Farm-friendly adaptations of timeless fairy tales.

Twelve-year-old Jimmy Spoon yearns for a life of adventure. So when two Shoshoni boys offer him a horse, Jimmy sneaks away from his family in Salt Lake City to follow the boys. When Jimmy arrives at the Shoshoni camp, he discovers that he is expected to stay - as a member of the tribe. Inspired by the memoirs of a white man who actually lived with Chief Washakie's tribe as a boy in the mid-1800s. (The Legend of Jimmy Spoon is a compelling coming-of-age adventure.)

A group of African slaves working in cotton fields in America escape an abusive overseer through magic recalled from Africa.

The women come from the Native American, African American, Mexican American, and Canadian traditions. Although they differ in many ways from their male counterparts, there are still tricksters, sweet talkers, and brave and strong protagonists like those found in hero stories. There has been some retelling, some modifications of dialects, some reshaping of open endings, but the plots have not been tampered with. Each story is illustrated with an engraving of some sort, with black background and white lines that give the pictures an antique quality like a woodcut or copper engraving. Notes on the stories and an extensive list of further reading are appended.